It’s hard to keep track of all the ways that the United States has changed since Donald Trump returned to the White House in January. The nation’s foreign aid programs have been destroyed, chaotic tariff policies have upended global trade, and press freedom has been repeatedly attacked. But there are also innumerable smaller shifts taking place and incrementally warping day-to-day life. One involves some of the country’s tiniest inhabitants: ants.
Sources tell WIRED that ant smugglers in the US have been emboldened by widespread government staffing cuts spearheaded by the so-called Department of Government Efficiency. The United States Department of Agriculture’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, which operates a program to stop the smuggling of invertebrate pests, was hit especially hard. The agency later rehired some of the people let go, but a number of the country’s best entomologists left for good.
Inside the world of illicit wildlife trafficking, there’s a growing assumption that nobody in government is paying attention. “The illegal market rapidly has become much more aggressive because of the lack of enforcement,” says Armando Rosario-Lebrón, who spoke to WIRED in his personal capacity, but also previously cochaired the Federal Interagency Committee on Invasive Terrestrial Animals and Pathogens before leaving the government earlier this year.
In a particularly turbulent moment in the United States, a rise in this kind of extremely niche and relatively harmless type of criminal activity could get lost. But if even a small percentage of the nonnative species of ants sold illegally get loose, it could have environmental, economic, and public health impacts. The US has already seen a variety of problems caused by invasive ants entering the country in previous decades, like the tawny crazy ant in Florida, which can form supercolonies inside homes that eat away electrical equipment. “The invasiveness potential is off the charts,” Rosario-Lebrón says. “It's just ridiculous.”
USDA spokesperson Heather Curlett said in a statement that the agency’s enforcement of federal plant pest regulations “has not changed or diminished.”
Antkeeping communities are usually pretty wholesome, driven by enthusiasts who have a keen, genuine interest in citizen science. In recent years, several prominent antkeeping creators have helped spike interest in the hobby. Most of the people involved have no criminal inclinations and many are very young. Rosario-Lebrón describes the typical ant vendor’s customer base as “children under 17.” They might not necessarily know that the USDA requires ant vendors to apply for permits to sell between states, so some buyers of illegal ants are doing so unintentionally. “The parents don't know it's illegal. The kids don't know it's illegal,” says Rosario-Lebrón.
The sellers, however, often do. WIRED spoke with several people involved in the black market ant trade, who asked to remain anonymous so they could speak freely about their knowledge of potentially illicit behavior. Some say they’ve witnessed a change in the smuggling ecosystem since the Trump administration began making steep cuts to the federal government, including the USDA. “It’s getting out of hand,” one seller says. “They realize the US market is a gold mine.”